SULLE VIE DELL'INFERNO

After a day’s work in his theatre, the puppeteer turns off the lights and closes the door behind him. The puppet Ariodante comes to life, dons the red costume of the poet Dante, confronts three wild beasts, joins Virgil, and guides us, nightmare after nightmare, through the sins of the world and infernal penance. At the end of this enthralling journey, we emerge with him to see the stars again and find ourselves once more in that small theatre full of compassion, a metaphor for the world and existence, just like Dante’s Comedy.

“In this documentary, Mimmo Cuticchio becomes a clear-eyed and detached narrator. Like Virgil, he guides us through this highly original transposition of Hell, in a Sicilian context in which the wonder and “frivolity” of the puppets present Dante’s tale with unusual undertones, making it up-to-date and, at the same time, universal. In this work, Mimmo Cuticchio’s Opera dei Pupi, the figurative consistency of Daniele Ciprì, and the music by Giacomo Cuticchio create a surprising symbiosis, an original scenic reality. The images show unexplored territories, filtered by the dreamlike gaze of the director Mimmo Cuticchio. The story of the damned evolves through the verses recited by the actor Alfonso Veneroso and Mimmo Cuticchio’s storytelling, which evokes a colorful imagery. Like a silent movie, the 16 stories created by Cuticchio take form from beginning to end inside the small proscenium of the puppets and on the big stage, according to the set design and the free-wheeling imagination of the story-telling puppeteer.”